Median Home Price in Lancaster County Registers Impressive

Lancaster, the seat of Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, has registered an impressive growth in property prices in the last year. According to a report from LCAR, average sale price of a home in July 2017 was a record breaking $225,752. This is 6.5% more than the average sale price of July 2016 which stood at $211,889. In July 2017, number of units sold in Lancaster County was 575 which are 1.8% more than 537 units sold in July 2016. Average sales in the month of July in the last 5 years is 537. This augurs well for the housing market with more new listings this July (741) than last July (712).

Number of units sold this year is higher

If one takes into account the combined sales for the first 7 months of the year, there has been an increase of 4.1% in 2017. 3,536 homes have been sold till July 2017 whereas this number stood at 3,536 last year. According to Jennifer King, the President of Lancaster County Association of Realtors, not only are homes selling at high prices but they are also moving fast.

Homes scooped up in quick time

It took 60 days or less on the market for more than 77% of the homes sold in July 2017. Nearly 65% of homes spent less than a month on the market. This shows the kind of demand there is for homes among home buyers. This demand is as good as it has been across the country since the Great Recession.

There were murmurs about poor sales figures in the previous three months of 2017. However, Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, dismisses such rumors. He says that sales figures were depressed not just in Lancaster County but in all parts of the country. This was partly due to meager supply and also because of increasing home prices that were outside the budget of common people. He added that it is good to note that sales figures are impressive despite shortage of affordable housing units.

Best indicator to evaluate the level of activity in a particular housing market is the number of pending home sales. Another indicator to check the activity level in a housing market is the demand and supply. While supply is the number of active listings on the housing market, demand is the number of homes that went under the contract. On both these counts, Lancaster County housing market fares well indicating it has a vibrant housing market.